SkaForHire

I don't know about you, but that forum was not accessible to me. Not that I could go to Brickworld, but this may have hindered others.

I liked the blue wedges. I think it looks like KK2 because of all the large pieces that could have been done with bricks. I felt that Lego was getting away from that since Castle I, and Kingdoms and LoTR also uses very few of those giant window in wall pieces. I don't think this castle holds up well to the Kingdoms castle, but I don't have the two side by side. Also, I don't think it is worth the shop at home price of $99, but I rarely think anything at the $99 price point holds up any longer.

To correct my earlier assuming, as I just went to my local TRU - The castle is currently only 109, and has not been marked up to the 120s range like they normally do around here. With the BOGO right now, two would run you around 165 without tax. I still couldn't fork over that kind of money for this set, it just didn't speak to me. I did pick up two of each of the three smaller sets. I am opening them now, and very impressed with the mini-figs. Too bad that red sideburns guy is only in the castle set... I just found out that I got a misplaced head in the first set I opened. I have never had that before. I got two of the same "serious" looking face, and no red sideburns guy... Then I read the review posted in the forum, and saw that I actually did not get the right head in my set!!! That is the weirdest mistake I have ever seen.

Isn't the price point for this at TRU 129 (on a good day?). I don't know if it is worth it, although I really like the figs (other than the shields). The castle looks too much like KK2.

If I remember correctly, the first grey kepi was on a rockraiders fig, that could somewhat pass as a confederate, but I could be wrong.

Dang it my wallet is not ready! If they are out in Texas, I guess I better start searching... I need a new army to build, CFM are getting way too expensive.

Oh no! I no longer exist hahahaha. I think some of Kaliphin got cut off in the last edit. I don't suppose you have the old text you had up there for us, I have Dugal, Petera, Derangar and now Paulos and Merith as important characters as each has a story revolving around them. People can look up Cannondale, Florbad, Al'Meter, Brandon Black, and the others on the wiki when I finally get around to posting their entries.

I like this, nice job! I like the small details on the bridge, and the tiling across the top of the bridge looks sharp. Better pictures too.

Yeah, good thing she was a trusted barber... never know what she could have done with that knife so close to his throat!

Awesome intro Str0ngbad!

And we should say that this is not the end, but a beginning. Although the current scoring will end in June, I think there is too much support not to have an official scoring mechanism and a new set of challenges come fall. We will probably have to figure out if summer free builds are going to count for anything.... Or maybe we could just have a MOC - off during the summer and at the end of the summer see which guild has the most points.

I am surprised by the give on those walls to curve them like that... I didn't know you could get that kind of angle. These are some of the coolest walls I have every seen.

Deserts are safest... Just saying. Welcome to GoH, great to see new blood!

I agree with DC, color choice was excellent to make those falcons "pop" out. Nice little story, sounds like we have some rogues amongst us...

I wonder how much of a migration will happen from the other guilds though. I have too much tan, I am never moving.

You were the Minnesotan I had in mind. I actually didn't realize we had so many Americans in GoH. That could end up being very educational though. Call it an immersion class!

Yeah, just a conference for North American members would be hard. Our geography is much greater, and we don't have nifty bullet trains to get us together in a relatively cheap manner. If I have paid attention, we have at least one in Minnesota, one (two?) in Florida, one in upstate New York, One in California, and I am in Texas. That is at every end of the United States... I think we have a Canuck too, and who knows about the people that have not said where they are from in the past. It would definitely be cool, but probably hard to do logistically in this area of the world.

Congrats Ecc! Way to impress the top brass.

Had you joined Avalonia, we would have probably just kidnapped you and brought you to Kaliphlin where you belong, anyway. Wrong guild, but welcome any way!!! :) Although Gideon beat me to the punch... I always use flash, but I have a DSLR with a really good detachable flash. The trick is not to point the flash at the object, sometimes in photography this is referred to bouncing the flash. It is a trick I use when shooting weddings indoors, but works with almost any type of shot. As Gideon said, white walls and ceilings work really well for this. My problem is I am too cheap to buy a photobox to bring more light into the photos. That and half the time I don't bother switching to my macro lens when I should. I have also developed this weird un-level-ness when shooting Lego, but nothing else. Oh well, probably will have to practice my MOC shooting this summer. But with a point and shoot, when I pull one out, I never use the flash, I also have one of those cheap bendable tripods to hold the PoS, so that my shaky hands don't mess it up.

Yay, Eastgate finally has a building other than the embassy. (Despite me claiming that I will some day build most of the city... then I go and build another city...) Neat MOC, and the gameboard is quite awesome. Next guild challenge... crown the grandmaster of Kai's game.

It is a full out PR campaign in here! I don't know how many of us really care about winning challenges. I think there were more in the beginning, but the whole concept started becoming about teams rather than individuals. Yes, the recognition of winning is good for some, and sometimes there are prizes, but really I think the entertainment value of a good story and a close-knit group of international friends trumps that all. Also, that close-knit group is very accepting of new members, so don't be shy. Oh yeah, join Kaliphlin. On another note, I think that some of the responses for this thread open up an interesting debate, perhaps for the second era of GoH, we should open up a "new members only" guild, that way, people don't feel intimidated joining an established guild with a rich history already. (A rich history that each builder adds to, no matter the seniority.)

I kind of like the mysterious free build system, because it keeps people from getting mad when their build does not score as much gold as someone else's. Since the judges put together a large score card adjustment every few months, we never know which builds scored high. Yeah, it stinks on one hand, not knowing how much you helped your guild earn, but on the other hand, it keeps people from getting mad at the judges and each other.

I figured that everyone was going to come up with some great stories on who had actually killed Victor, and it would be a shame if all of the sudden they didn't count when we decided which was the official story. There was a lot of back-plot for some builder's characters and stories. I figured whoever wins, their story was how the history would be written and their aftermath (if they wrote one) would stand, but I think the measure of uncertainty that comes after this chapter is key to what comes next for the project. I really could just not get the focus working on the green building build. I don't know why, also I had the weirdest space to actually take the pictures because my fiance had confiscated all my tables and every inch of the house for a shower she was throwing this last weekend... Also, I really liked your civil war idea. Some people desire more conflict, and that would be a way to give it to them, while others might just sit out. After reading everyone's story and thinking about it, my "dream" epilogue and preamble to the next round of challenges would be a mix between Z's civil war idea for the mainline plot, DM's idea of a builder's character trying to take over Historica as a plot element, and my multiple victor idea so that the other stories count, and the idea that many of us had in our stories that a new land was opened up that would play into power politics back in Historica. I might be forgetting something here, but for me, that would be a pretty awesome beginning to the next set of challenges. Regardless, I already have two planned storylines to illustrate through a series of builds coming up, so I have some building inspiration until we start new challenges.

At first I was like, what are people talking about, broken bamboo, then I saw it... That is pretty terrific. Might borrow that one some day. haha. Anyway, great little scene here with a nice base and some good action sequence.

Have a good break, Masa!